Combat Amnesty

I don't really expect to find anything cool when I step into one of Portland's few used record shops. I mean, if you are looking for that Huey Lewis And The News album, they will probably have you covered, but chances are slim for them to have some obscure 80's metal record that will have me scooping it up and heading to the check-out counter. So it was with great surprise that I found a copy of the first Zoetrope album, Amnesty, in the racks when I ducked into Moody Lords one weekend.

While Zoetrope were an 80's speed metal band, I never bothered to check them out at the time. I don't expect that their cassette showed up too often at the Mall where I was shopping back in 1985, but even if it was, the odd band name may have made me a bit hesitant to buy it. Years later, I heard their song on the Metal Massacre 4 comp, but I still didn't bother to check out anything else from the band until 2020. Crazy that it took me 35 years to finally give this band a serious listen, and man, I was missing out. Amnesty is a damn solid record of 80's metal.

The craziest part of this story is that this album was still sealed. Insane that I was the first one to break the cellophane wrap and drop the needle on this record. Man, it gave me chills to see that green Combat label when I pulled it out of the record sleeve. Classic.